We propose a new strategy to look for long-lived particles (LLP) at the LHC. The LLPs are produced at one experiment, but its decay products are detected by a detector at another experiment. We use a confining Hidden Valley scenario as a benchmark. Through showering and hadronization, the multiplicity of hidden mesons can be large, and their decay products, dimuon as chosen in this study, are typically too soft to pass triggers in traditional LHC searches. We find the best acceptance is achieved if we produce LLPs at collision points at the LHCb and ALICE experiments, and use the muon chamber of ATLAS for detection. This new search is cost-efficient since it does not require a new detector to be built. Meanwhile, it can provide coverage of interesting parameter space, which is complementary to other proposed LLP searches.
We advocate for the construction of a new detector element at the LHCb experiment, designed to search for displaced decays of beyond standard model long-lived particles, taking advantage of a large shielded space in the LHCb cavern that is expected to soon become available. We discuss the general features and putative capabilities of such an experiment, as well as its various advantages and complementarities with respect to the existing LHC experiments and proposals such as SHiP and MATHUSLA. For two well-motivated beyond Standard Model benchmark scenarios -- Higgs decay to dark photons and $B…
We examine the detection prospects for a long-lived bi$ν$o, a pseudo-Dirac bino which is responsible for neutrino masses, at the LHC and at dedicated long-lived particle detectors. The bi$ν$o arises in $U(1)_R$-symmetric supersymmetric models where the neutrino masses are generated through higher dimensional operators in an inverse seesaw mechanism. At the LHC the bi$ν$o is produced through squark decays and it subsequently decays to quarks, charged leptons and missing energy via its mixing with the Standard Model neutrinos. We consider long-lived bi$ν$os which escape the ATLAS or CMS detector…
We propose to implement a two-stage detection strategy for exotic long-lived particles that could be produced at the CERN LHC, become trapped in detector material, and decay later. The proposed strategy relies on an array of metal rods, combined to form a high-density target. In a first stage, the rods are exposed to radiation from LHC collisions in one of the experimental caverns. In a second stage, they are individually immersed in liquid argon in a different experimental hall, where out-of-time decays could produce a detectable signal. Using a benchmark case of long-lived gluino pair produc…
In this work, we aim to provide a comprehensive and largely model independent investigation on prospects to detect long-lived multiply charged particles at the LHC. We consider particles with spin 0 and $\frac{1}{2}$, with electric charges in range $1 \le |Q/e| \le 8$, which are singlet or triplet under $SU(3)_C$. Such particles might be produced as particle-antiparticle pairs and propagate through detectors, or form a positronium(quarkonium)-like bound state. We consider both possibilities and estimate lower mass bounds on new particles, that can be provided by ATLAS, CMS and MoEDAL experimen…
The planned upgrade of the CMS detector for the High Luminosity LHC allows to find tracks in the silicon tracker for every single LHC collision and use them in the first level (hardware) trigger decision. So far, studies by CMS collaboration concentrated on the maintaining the overall trigger performance in the punishing pile up environment. We argue that the potential capabilities of the track trigger are much wider, and may offer groundbreaking opportunities for new physics searches. As an example, and to facilitate community discussion, we use a simple toy simulation to study rare Higgs dec…
We study the prospects for long-lived charged particle (LLCP) searches at current and future LHC runs and at a 100 TeV pp collider, using Drell-Yan slepton pair production as an example. Because momentum measurements become more challenging for very energetic particles, we carefully treat the expected momentum resolution. At the same time, a novel feature of 100 TeV collisions is the significant energy loss of energetic muons in detectors. We use this to help discriminate between muons and LLCPs. We find that the 14 TeV LHC with an integrated luminosity of 3 ab$^{-1}$ can probe LLCP slepton ma…
We study the impact of picosecond precision timing detection systems on the LHC experiments' long-lived particle search program during the HL-LHC era. We develop algorithms that allow us to reconstruct the mass of such charged particles and perform particle identification using the time-of-flight measurement. We investigate the reach for benchmark scenarios as a function of the timing resolution, and find sensitivity improvement of up to a factor of ten, depending on the new heavy particle mass.
Many models of dark matter predict long-lived particles (LLPs) that can give rise to striking signatures at the LHC. Existing searches for displaced vertices are however tailored towards heavy LLPs. In this work we show that this bias severely affects their sensitivity to LLPs with masses at the GeV scale. To illustrate this point we consider two dark sector models with light LLPs that decay hadronically: a strongly-interacting dark sector with long-lived exotic mesons, and a Higgsed dark sector with a long-lived dark Higgs boson. We study the sensitivity of an existing ATLAS search for displa…
I discuss various scenarios for long-lived particles at the LHC that can have spectacular signatures, not all of which have been searched for. I take motivation from dark matter and the hierarchy problem, as well as from finding novel signatures. There is also a brief discussion of triggers.
This article is a pedagogical review to searches for long-lived particles at the LHC, primarily aimed at experimentalists and theorists seeking to initiate and/or deepen their research in this field. We cover general theory priors and example models, the main experimental techniques for long-lived particles and some of the subtleties involved with both estimating signal efficiencies and background rates.
We study the pair production of the long-lived mediator particles from the decay of the SM Higgs boson and their subsequent decay into standard model particles. We compute the projected sensitivity, both model-independently and with a minimal model, of using the muon spectrometer of the CMS detector at the HL-LHC experiment for ggF, VBF, and Vh production modes of the Higgs boson and various decay modes of the mediator particle, along with dedicated detectors for LLP searches like CODEX-b and MATHUSLA. Subsequently, we study the improvement with the FCC-hh detector at the 100\,TeV collider exp…
Dark matter scenarios are being tested at the LHC in the general-purpose experiments through promptly decaying states. In parallel, new dedicated detectors have been proposed for the LHC to probe dark matter portal theories predicting long-lived particles that decay away from the interaction point: MoEDAL-MAPP, MoEDAL-MALL, FASER, SND@LHC, CODEX-b, MATHUSLA, AL3X, ANUBIS, FACET, milliQan, FORMOSA. In addition, the SHiP beam-dump experiment is planned to operate with the SPS beam to extend the discovery reach for such particles. The detector design and expected physics sensitivity of these expe…
We present an extension of the simplified fast detector simulator of MadAnalysis 5 - the SFS framework - with methods making it suitable for the treatment of long-lived particles of any kind. This allows users to make use of intuitive Python commands and straightforward C++ methods to introduce detector effects relevant for long-lived particles, and to implement selection cuts and plots related to their properties. In particular, the impact of the magnetic field inside a typical high-energy physics detector on the trajectories of any charged object can now be easily simulated. As an illustrati…
We investigate a class of models where the supergravity model with the standard model gauge group is extended by a hidden sector $U(1)_X$ gauge group and where the lightest supersymmetric particle is the neutralino in the hidden sector. We investigate this possibility in a class of models where the stau is the lightest supersymmetric particle in the MSSM sector and the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle of the $U(1)_X$-extended SUGRA model. In this case the stau will decay into the neutralino of the hidden sector. For the case when the mass gap between the stau and the hidden sector neut…
We show that heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide a promising environment to search for new long lived particles in well-motivated New Physics scenarios. One advantage lies in the possibility to operate the main detectors with looser triggers, which can increase the number of observable events by orders of magnitude if the long lived particles are produced with low transverse momentum. In addition, the absence of pileup in heavy ion collisions can avoid systematic nuisances that will be present in future proton runs, such as the problem of vertex mis-identification. Finally, there are new p…
Interest in searches for heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) at the LHC has increased considerably in the past few years. In the minimal scenario, HNLs are produced and decay via their mixing with active neutrinos in the Standard Model (SM) spectrum. However, many SM extensions with HNLs have been discussed in the literature, which sometimes change expectations for LHC sensitivities drastically. In the $N_R$SMEFT, one extends the SM effective field theory with operators including SM singlet fermions, which allows to study HNL phenomenology in a "model independent" way. In this paper, we study the sen…
A gauged $U(1)_X$ extension of the Standard Model is a simple and consistent framework to naturally incorporate three right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) for generating the observed light neutrino masses and mixing by the type-I seesaw mechanism. We examine the collider testability of the $U(1)_X$ model, both in its minimal form with the conventional charges, as well as with an alternative charge assignment, via the resonant production of the $U(1)_X$ gauge boson ($Z^\prime$) and its subsequent decay into a pair of RHNs. We first derive an updated upper limit on the new gauge coupling $g_X$ as a fun…
We explore the physics potential of using precision timing information at the LHC in searches for long-lived particles (LLPs). In comparison with the light Standard Model particles, the decay products of massive LLPs arrive at detectors with time delays around the nanosecond scale. We propose new strategies to take advantage of this time delay feature by using initial state radiation to timestamp the collision event and require at least one LLP to decay within the detector. This search strategy is effective for a broad range of models. In addition to outlining this general approach, we demonst…
Neutral long-lived particles (LLPs) are highly motivated by many BSM scenarios, such as theories of supersymmetry, baryogenesis, and neutral naturalness, and present both tremendous discovery opportunities and experimental challenges for the LHC. A major bottleneck for current LLP searches is the prediction of SM backgrounds, which are often impossible to simulate accurately. In this paper, we propose a general strategy for obtaining differential, data-driven background estimates in LLP searches, thereby notably extending the range of LLP masses and lifetimes that can be discovered at the LHC.…
The presence of a hidden sector with very weak interactions with the standard model has significant implications on LHC signatures. In this work we discuss LHC phenomenology with the inclusion of a hidden sector by a $U(1)$ extension of MSSM/SUGRA. We consider both kinetic mixing and Stueckelberg mass mixing between the $U(1)$ gauge field of the hidden sector and $U(1)_Y$ of the visible sector. Such a model has an extended parameter space. We consider here two limited regions of this parameter space. In the first case we consider a $U(1)$ gauge field along with chiral fields needed for the Stu…
Triggering long-lived particles at the first stage of the trigger system is very crucial in LLP searches to ensure that we do not miss them at the very beginning. The future High Luminosity runs of the Large Hardron Collider will have increased number of pile-up events per bunch crossing. There will be major upgrades in hardware, firmware and software sides, like tracking at level-1 (L1) as well as inclusion of the MIP timing detector. The L1 trigger menu will also be modified to cope with pile-up and maintain the sensitivity to physics processes. In our study we found that the usual level-1 t…
While the paradigm of a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) has guided our search strategies for dark matter in the past decades, their null-results have stimulated growing interest in alternative explanations pointing towards non-standard signatures. In this article we discuss the phenomenology of dark matter models that predict long-lived particle at the LHC. We focus on models with a $Z_2$-odd dark sector where - in decreasing order of the dark matter coupling - a coannihilation, conversion-driven freeze-out or superWIMP/freeze-in scenario could be realized.
We examine the capacity of the Large Hadron Collider to determine the mean proper lifetime of long-lived particles assuming different decay final states. We mostly concentrate on the high luminosity runs of the LHC, and therefore, develop our discussion in light of the high amount of pile-up and the various upgrades for the HL-LHC runs. We employ model-dependent and model-independent methods in order to reconstruct the proper lifetime of neutral long-lived particles decaying into displaced leptons, potentially accompanied by missing energy, as well as charged long-lived particles decaying ihnt…
Supersymmetry searches at the LHC are both highly varied and highly constraining, but the vast majority are focused on cases where the final-stage visible decays are prompt. Scenarios featuring superparticles with detector-scale lifetimes have therefore remained a tantalizing possibility for sub-TeV SUSY, since explicit limits are relatively sparse. Nonetheless, the extremely low backgrounds of the few existing searches for collider-stable and displaced new particles facilitates recastings into powerful long-lived superparticle searches, even for models for which those searches are highly non-…
In this paper, we point out a novel signature of physics beyond the Standard Model which could potentially be observed both at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and at future colliders. This signature, which emerges naturally within many proposed extensions of the Standard Model, results from the multiple displaced vertices associated with the successive decays of unstable, long-lived particles along the same decay chain. We call such a sequence of displaced vertices a "tumbler." We examine the prospects for observing tumblers at the LHC and assess the extent to which tumbler signatures can be d…
A certain class of neutrino mass models predicts long-lived particles whose electric charge is four or three times larger than that of protons. Such particles, if they are light enough, may be produced at the LHC and detected. We investigate the possibility of observing those long-lived multi-charged particles with the MoEDAL detector, which is sensitive to long-lived particles with low velocities ($β$) and a large electric charge ($Z$) with $Θ\equiv β/Z \lesssim 0.15$. We demonstrate that multi-charged scalar particles with a large $Z$ give three-fold advantage for MoEDAL; reduction of $Θ$ du…
A long standing problem in kinematics at the hadron colliders is to determine the mass of invisible particles. This issue is particularly important for the signals of dark matter, which becomes one of the prominent targets of future collider experiments. In this paper, we show that the additional information from the precise timing measurement, which will be available at the planned high-liminosity run of the LHC (HL-LHC), will shade new light on the kinematics study. As a concrete example, we focus on the signal of the pair produced long-lived particles ($LLP_{1,2}$), respectively leaving dis…
We investigate the pair-production of right-handed neutrinos via the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson in a gauged $B-L$ model. The right-handed neutrinos with a mass of few tens of GeV generating viable light neutrino masses via the seesaw mechanism naturally exhibit displaced vertices and distinctive signatures at the LHC and proposed lepton colliders. The production rate of the right-handed neutrinos depends on the mixing between the SM Higgs and the exotic Higgs associated with the $B-L$ breaking, whereas their decay length depends on the active-sterile neutrino mixing. We focus on the displ…
